Current weather

It is mid-January and the Kenai River has opened. I’m wondering whether the tiny salmon, with the egg sac still hanging from their bellies will emerge, too early, from the gravel bars upriver. People tell me their lilacs are preparing to unwrap the leaves and blossom buds they set last fall. Peony plants are dying in the field because of constant freeze/thaw. Sled dog races are at risk because of slush.

If salmon could vote with their fins, they would swim upstream to a voting booth on Tuesday.

The borough assembly, after a long and often contentious process, recently voted to protect salmon in their spawning and rearing habitat by establishing a vegetated buffer along our waterways. Now that protection is in danger.

It has begun, another industry battle for the hearts and minds of Alaska’s people and for our shared resources. First there were the announcements of “new” North Slope expenditures by major producers, ConocoPhillips and BP ... mainly projects that had already been years in the planning. (Dare we hope that we have reporters who are capable of research and editors who do more than parrot industry press releases)?

Last legislative session, our governor proposed an annual $2,000,000,000 tax break (for 10 years, with no strings attached!) for the companies that extract our oil and gas resources from the ground. Thanks to the work of moderate Republicans and Democrats in the Senate Bipartisan Coalition the give-away failed. A compromise plan was rejected by the governor. Now we are just weeks away from an election that may well determine the economic future of the State of Alaska.